Decision to be made on plans to build distribution centre on Wolverhampton green space

The proposed distribution centre would be built on green space off Neachells Lane on the edge of Wolverhampton.

The plans also includes offices, more than 300 parking spaces and 60 lorry parking bays.

The 31-acre site is bordered by St Matthias School’s playing fields, a railway line and the Strawberry Lane Industrial Site and Neachells Lane opposite the Travis Perkins builders yard.

The former coal mine was later used as a landfill site and then ‘reclaimed’ in the 1990s as public open space.

The site is designated as a site of local importance for nature conservation and was included as part of an ‘urban forest’ project across the Black Country in the early 2000s designed to increase urban tree planting and create more woodlands for public use.

The plans submitted by Goold Estates more than a year ago will be decided by City of Wolverhampton Council’s planning committee at a meeting on January 21.

A handful of objections were submitted against the plans with concerns over the loss of green space and increase in congestion and collisions.

Some objectors said the remaining green space would be “minimal” and “practically unusable.”

The objections also raised questions over whether a huge distribution centre could be built elsewhere given the number of empty and dilapidated warehouses off Willenhall Road and in the surrounding area.

A report by the council’s planning officers, which recommends the work be approved by councillors, said the distribution centre said the “significant” financial investment and jobs “outweighed” the loss of green space and environmental impact.

The impact on local roads would ‘not be severe’, the report also said.

“The proposal is capable of delivering exceptional strategic benefits resulting in significant financial investment and job creation, which can outweigh negative impacts on nature conservation and overall levels of open space provision,” the report said.

“The proposed access to the development would not conflict with transport and parking development plan policies, and would not result an unacceptable impact on highway safety, or neither would the residual cumulative impacts on the road network be severe.”

The same report says that to account for the loss of the green space, a legal agreement will be entered that sees £150,000 provided for a new children’s play area in Stowlawn and £550,000 for East Park.

The land was included in 2021 in the now scrapped Black Country Plan as a potential site for employment. The most recent planning application for the land was submitted more than a decade ago and included plans for a driving range. However, the plans were never decided and later withdrawn.